Wind wrote:Christians would say God gave us Free-will. Does Free-will exist? Or is it similar to Anatta where it's only an illusion?
This is a difficult quenstion to answer. Because free will can imply religious, sientific and ethical aplications.
We have to conceit free will first.
We can say that free will is the purported right of agents to make choices and actions free from any constraints.
In catholic relegion the term Free will imput that god does not assert his power over the choices and actions of any being.
So we can asked about it:
- Determinism exist?
- Does free will exist?
- When one make choices or actions, could he has any physical constraints?
- When one make choices or actions, could he has any social constraints?
- When one amke choices or actions, could he has any psychological constraints?
To have a clue to this questions this quotes are necessary:
Determinism is roughly defined as the view that all current and future events are causally necessitated by past events combined with the laws of nature. Neither determinism nor its opposite, indeterminism, are positions in the debate about free will.
Free Will in Buddhism:
Buddhism accepts both freedom and determinism (or something similar to it), but rejects the idea of an agent, and thus the idea that freedom is a free will belonging to an agent. According to the Buddha, "There is free action, there is retribution, but I see no agent that passes out from one set of momentary elements into another one, except the [connection] of those elements [aggregates]." Buddhists believe in neither absolute free will, nor determinism. It preaches a middle doctrine, named paticcasamuppāda in Pali, which is often translated as "inter-dependent arising". It is part of the theory of karma in Buddhism. The concept of karma in Buddhism is different from the notion of karma in Hinduism. In Buddhism, the idea of karma is much less deterministic. This Buddhist notion of karma is primarily focused on the cause and effect of moral actions in this life, while in Hinduism the concept of karma is more often connected with determining one's destiny in future lives.
In Buddhism it is taught that the idea of absolute freedom of choice (i.e. that any human being could be completely free to make any choice) is foolish, because it denies the reality of one's physical needs and circumstances. Equally incorrect is the idea that we have no choice in life or that our lives are pre-determined. To deny freedom would be to deny the efforts of Buddhists to make moral progress (through our capacity to freely choose compassionate action). Pubbekatahetuvada, the belief that all happiness and suffering arise from previous actions, is considered a wrong view according to Buddhist doctrines. Because Buddhists also reject agenthood, the traditional compatibilist strategies are closed to them as well. Instead, the Buddhist philosophical strategy is to examine the metaphysics of causality. Ancient India had many heated arguments about the nature of causality with Jains, Nyayists, Samkhyists, Cārvākans, and Buddhists all taking slightly different lines. In many ways, the Buddhist position is closer to a theory of "conditionality" than a theory of "causality", especially as it is expounded by Nagarjuna in the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā.
Actually our friends Vajrayana may have a different view. With the role of Samanthabadra and Samanthabadri.
In "my" opinion I prefer to be with the view of Paticcasamupada and wold state the following:
"Either free-will or non-free-will, but a subtle freedom that is on the supramundane realesation".
You can find more in Wiki Philosphy Portal